In the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death, prosecutors examined sexual assault claims against one of his most powerful associates: Leon Black.
The Justice Department’s newly released Epstein files show prosecutors looked at allegations from at least four women who accused the billionaire former CEO of Apollo Global Management — the key source of Epstein’s wealth in the last decade of his life — of sexual assault and other misconduct.
Neither the local Manhattan district attorney’s office nor the federal US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York — the two departments examining the accusations against Black — brought charges against him.
The newly public files include dozens of emails, internal memos, and records of calls with lawyers for Black’s accusers going back to 2019. They include the first known instance that prosecutors investigated whether there was wrongdoing related to Black.
Two of the women who drew the attention of prosecutors alleged Black raped them in Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 2002, claims that mirror those in civil lawsuits filed against Black after Epstein’s death. One, who said Black raped her as an adult, has since withdrawn her lawsuit. The other woman’s lawsuit, in which she alleged Black raped her as a teenager, is pending. In each case, Black has denied wrongdoing.
Lawyers and a spokesperson for Black didn’t answer Business Insider’s questions about any interactions with law enforcement. Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, pointed to an Apollo-commissioned investigation of Black that she said found “he had no awareness of Epstein’s criminal activities.”
“There is absolutely no truth to any of the allegations against Mr. Black,” Estrich said in a statement.
Representatives for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment about their inquiries into Black.
An alleged rape in Epstein’s townhouse
Epstein was convicted of state charges for procuring a child for prostitution in 2008 and died in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
In March 2021, Black stepped down from his role as CEO and chairman of Apollo, the behemoth he’d cofounded.
The billionaire’s connections to Epstein had been the subject of media and public scrutiny since Epstein’s 2019 arrest, prompting an internal investigation that found Black had transferred over $150 million to the convicted sex offender between 2012 and 2017.
The review found no evidence of criminal activity. The transactions, which Black has said were for tax and estate planning advice, are now under scrutiny by the Senate Finance Committee’s investigators.
The newly released files show that behind the scenes, the Justice Department also looked into Black’s ties to Epstein.
A December 2019 memo says that federal prosecutors investigated Epstein’s “potential co-conspirators,” including Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence and is the only person to be criminally charged for involvement in his sex-trafficking operation.
The document does not list Black among the potential coconspirators, but includes a summary of a 2019 interview with a woman who told the Justice Department that Epstein directed her to massage Black in Epstein’s townhouse. She told investigators she “ran out of the room” when Black “began initiating sexual contact,” the document said. The document was heavily redacted, and the date of the alleged incident is unclear.
A document from 2021 details allegations relayed to federal prosecutors by Jeanne Christensen, an attorney who specializes in sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits. Christensen told them she spoke to a woman who alleged that “Leon Black raped her violently.”
Christensen’s account is that Epstein introduced the woman to Black at his townhouse in 2002 under the pretense that he could help her find work. The woman claimed Black sexually assaulted her in Epstein’s massage room, Christensen said.
The allegations mirror those made in a 2022 civil lawsuit against Black by Cheri Pierson, whom Christensen represented. In the lawsuit, Pierson said she experienced “excruciating pain” when Black “placed his mouth on her vagina and began biting her” on the massage table.
According to Christensen’s email to prosecutors, Pierson’s allegation resembled the experience of another client who had accused Black of sexual assault. The non-redacted portions of the documents include few other details of this woman’s account but show that the Manhattan district attorney’s office later closed its investigation into her claims.
Black has said he never met Pierson, who discontinued her lawsuit, which was dismissed with prejudice, in 2024.
Another accuser steps forward
In February 2023, a prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office emailed an assistant US Attorney to say the DA’s office was looking into a new accusation against Black. It was an extension of an investigation into Epstein and his associates that dated back to 2019, the files show.
The woman was represented by Christensen and said she “was trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein,” the prosecutor said.
The new accuser’s claims, described in memos federal prosecutors wrote, are consistent with the allegations made by the woman who filed the most recent lawsuit against Black, in July 2023, using a “Jane Doe” pseudonym.
The lawsuit, which is pending, alleges the accuser was sexually abused by Epstein in 2002, when she was 16 years old, and trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to multiple men, including Black.
Estrich, Black’s attorney, called the accuser “a fraud.”
“Her birth family says she makes up stories and she fabricates ‘evidence,'” Estrich said in a statement to Business Insider.
A spokesperson for Christensen’s law firm, Wigdor LLP, declined to comment. The woman who filed the lawsuit didn’t respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Manhattan DA investigators interviewed the woman in January 2023, according to a memo written by a federal prosecutor. The memo said the Manhattan DA’s office had “not found any independent corroboration” of her allegations “against JE and LB,” appearing to refer to Jeffrey Epstein and Leon Black.
Four days before Christensen filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of the accuser, she blasted federal prosecutors for not indicting Black.
“It’s outrageous that criminal charges have not been brought against him,” Christensen wrote.
A prominent attorney representing other Epstein victims pushed back at the accuser’s story, according to the newly released files.
Brad Edwards, who has represented over 100 Epstein accusers, opposed the woman’s attempt to join a $290 million class-action settlement from a lawsuit that victims had filed against JPMorgan Chase for allegedly facilitating his sex-trafficking operation, according to a prosecutor’s memo.
According to the memo, which was based on a conversation the prosecutor had with Christensen, Edwards said in a sealed court hearing that there was no “corroboration” for the accuser’s claims about her interactions with Epstein, Maxwell, and Black. Edwards told the judge that “the number of people she claims to be trafficked to is incredible,” the memo said. Edwards declined Business Insider’s request for comment.
US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who oversaw the class-action lawsuit, “expressed reluctance to affirm the award” to the woman “because he can’t understand why there is no corroboration,” the memo said.
It isn’t clear from the Epstein files or from court records if the woman received funds from the settlement.
Christensen represented a third woman in a civil action against Black: Guzel Ganieva, who in 2021 accused him of rape and trying to pressure her into a sexual encounter with Epstein. It’s unclear from the heavily redacted documents if prosecutors looked into the allegations by Ganieva, whose lawsuit was dismissed in 2023 after a judge found her claims were barred by a non-disclosure agreement with Black, who said they had a consensual relationship.
There’s no indication that any criminal inquiry into Black remains active. A June 2024 timeline of the Epstein investigation put together by the FBI referred to it using the past tense: “The Manhattan District Attorney’s office looked into allegations against Leon Black.”
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